Hidden Self
by Jak Cooper the Lombax
Summary: I awoke screaming bloody murder as I felt those infamous talons rip me to shreds. Even after his death, Clockwerk has lived to his famous last words, "You will never be rid of me." Quick One Shot. R&R if you guys want to. Part 2 of Clockwerk Curse One Shots.


Takes place between An Opera of Fear and Rumble Down Under.

Welp, this is what I write when I listen to Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance for a few days... *shrugs* Okay then.

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 **Disclaimer: Sucker Punch/Sanzaru own the rights to Sly Cooper. I don't.**

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He's right behind me. I know I don't have much time left. I know that. The wings behind me flap faster as if the larg owl has tilted himself and extended his talons out.

 _ **"Cooper!"**_

I screamed as I awoke from feeling those infamous talons ripping me to shreds to the heavy thunderstorm raging outside the hideout.

"SLY!" I nearly lost my winter coat as Murray slammed my door open and had a twenty pound dumbbell ready to throw at whatever has scared me.

"Where's the sucker I need to throw out into the street?"

"Th-there...There was no one. Just a bad dream." I caught myself shaking with fear as the back of my head continued to dwell on what the pain would feel like with those cold talons cuting through my fur and skin. Like someone put a knife into a fire until the blade was glowing red and put ice on my arm as they cut it open.

"What's wrong buddy?"

"Nothing."

"... ... Clockwerk nightmare?"

I slowly nodded after I let my head fall down in defeat.

"... ... Hug?"

I didn't give him an answer.

"Hug it is then." I gave a small grin just before I had my arms pinned to my sides with Murray's bear hug.

"What'd I miss gu-" Bentley wheeled in to find Murray almost holding me as if I were slowly dying or just really sick. I really hope that I am the latter.

"Nightmare hug." I mumbled when Murray finally stepped back to let Bentley see that I was somewhat fine.

"Talons or just seeing the wings?"

"Talons."

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Was standing out in the rain a good idea? Probably not the smartest thing to do, but it calms me down when I'm either angered to the high heavens or my heart's beating faster than Bentley's fingers on a keyboard when he's hacking past a firewall. I'm pretty sure other people do stranger things to calm themselves down.

"C _ **oo**_ pe _ **r!**_ "

I yelled out in pure terror as I nearly fell off the chimney I was standing on as I suddenly felt light headed ad dizzy, as if I almost fell into a panic attack.

 _ **"**_ Y _ **ou**_ c _ **an'**_ t _**hi**_ d _ **e**_ f _ **ro**_ m _**m**_ e _**for**_ e _ **ve**_ r!"

"GET OUT OF MY LIFE!" I screamed as I burst into a run across the rooftops as bolts of lightning flew past me and the thunder roared over head.

"Get back here, Ringtail!"

"NO!" My boots slid on the concrete as I twisted around mid step to face Inspector Fox with my teeth bared and a audible growl rumbling from my throat.

"When did you get such a temper, Cooper? I've never seen you this angry."

"Just leave me alone!" I stooped down for a split second to snatch a stray brick and stood back up with my arm stretched out behind me as if I were throwing a grenade. Carmelita flinched as she blinked and dropped her jaw for a split second before she holstered her shock pistol.

"Sly? What's wro-"

"Nothing's wrong with me!" I shouted as I threw the brick at her. It hit the chimney next to her as she flinched at the brick chips flying from the chimney.

"SLY! What's gotten into you!?" She barked as she instantly had her shock pistol back in her hands pointed squarely at my chest. Silence passed for few moments before I walked over to the road side wall and placed my right foot on the edge of the roof.

"SLY COOPER! WE HAVE YOU SUROUNDED!"

I started laughing as Chief Barkley lowered the megaphone and pulled my collapsed cane out from the pouch on my right thigh.

"GOOD LUCK TRYING TO FIND ME!" I shouted as I threw down a smoke bomb and calling card as the cane extended into the infamous question mark and let the dark smoke drift around me for a second before I slipped into the store attic below.

"FIND HIM!" I sighed as the police started searching for me while I simply hid in the rafters of someone's store attic. Something told me that I'm definitely going to be here for a while. Good thing I'm a stick dude as Dimitri stated back in Venice, i gave a small grin as I tucked my legs under me and rested my chin on my hands, like the way a wild rabbit sleeps.

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"Wizard to Tail. Can you hear me, Striped Tail?"

"I can hear you, Wizard." I whispered as I squinted at the darkness of the attic.

"What time is it?"

"Eleven twenty two at night." I sighed as I felt my legs slowly getting the blood pumping back through them as I leaned back and let my legs dangle from the rafters with my back against a vertical rafter... with my left ear lightly touching a spider we- no, cob web. I shivered as I swatted the cob web off my glove and listened to Bentley blabbering on about me being all over the news of just simply vanishing into a cloud of black smoke and throwing a brick at Inspector Carmelita.

"Can we just drop that subject?" I sighed as I closed my eyes and looked aimlessly up at the ceiling.

"... Do you need Murray to come and pick you up with the other van?"

"Do you even know where I am?"

"Uh, Sly. Did you forget that I can track your Binocucom?" I mentally slapped myself across the face as Bentley lightly laughed on his end as he sent Murray out after me with the jade colored van with black tinted rear windows.

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"Hey buddy." I sighed as I curled up in the back seat as Murray gently patted me on my shoulder. It's somewhat odd seeing him in a simple white shirt and grey jacket, but when the world wide police force is after you, anything besides what the clothes on the world wide wanted posters would change you into a complete nobody.

"I'm really sorry Sly."

"What are you sorry about? You aren't the one who went insane today. I was. I'm sorry for putting a bigger bounty on our heads." I frowned as Murray focused his gazed back on the road from looking through the rear view mirror at me. The next few minutes passed with silence as the van crawled at the legal speed limit through the streets of Paris.

"Sly. I'm not going to accept your apology. Do you want to know why?" Murray smiled at the rear view mirror at me which just had me give a weak smile and ask why.

"Because what you did today is something you do every day."

I felt a large pit form in my stomach as I knew that was wrong. What I did today was something I almost never do. I never threw a brick at Carm and I never laughed like a maniac at the police and I've never heard Clockwerk's voice in anything Carmelita's ever said to me. And I never started going crazy in the past.

"Th- That's... Thanks..." I almost threw up over what lie I just used to cover up the truth I was going to tell. What is going on with me?

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And that's how this one ends. Happy Late Valentine's Day everyone and I'll see you guys next time.

 _ **~Jak Cooper the Lombax**_

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Cut Content (I think I'm gonna do this more often!)

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Sly being Robin Hood? (Thieves in Time add on based off a theory I had come up during the writing of this. I might actually do another one shot dealing with that theory.)

"Where are they at again!?" I snapped awake to find a civilian up in their attic looking around for something with a much older man yelling up at the young mountain lion searching for something in this attic.

"There over by the ladder to the roof!"

"Found 'em!" I clenched my teeth as the mountain lion left the attic and shut the door and left me in darkness with my left leg being asleep. I gave out a small hiss as I lifted my chest from my legs of which I had fallen asleep with my legs tucked under my chest and my chin over my knees and on the backs of my hands. Note to add to the Thievius Raccoonus, don't sleep in that position unless you're just plainly stuck up on a rafter and INTERPOL is searching day and night for you... And always have a granola bar or two on you for long steak outs like these. My stomach growled to prove that last bit of the note to state it's claim.

"Why didn't you put labels on the boxes then!?" I froze again as the mountain lion came back into the attic and grabbed another box and left to leave the door wide open, letting whatever sounds move in and out of the attic.

"We need to make sure that Sly Cooper doesn't steal our money. You know that your mother needed that surgery done, and with money being tight now due to that, we can't let that 'Master Thief' steal all our rent and food money." That's just sad. They think I'd steal the money they need to live? I'm not that low. I guess they're those people that don't know I only steal from other thieves and not from ordinary people.

"I hear he only steals from criminals, you know, like that one guy...What was his name? He ran that Nightclub over near the Eiffel. Dimitri?"

"Ah. Dimitri, Sly Cooper, and maybe even your friends at school are thieves. They're all the same. No respect. No honor. Just money is all they have in mind. And what that racoon steals from other thieves, those thieves stole from us. So that racoon steals from us in the end anyways." At least I never stole your free will to only let you fell anger and hatred or just steal your life from you entirely.

"Well, what about that one thief that most people said that he's a myth but he turned out to be real due to a guy finding the owl's remains in a volcano in Russia?...umm...Clockwerk! Yeah! That metal owl that was Curse of The Cooper Clan? Sy Cooper killed him! Twice in fact when Clockwerk returned two years later after The Klaww Gang put him back together!"

"You studied way too much of the recent historty. Thieves back when I was your age just stole from whoever, but that one Cooper... Oh, what was his name... Conner Cooper? Eh, whatever his name was. He was a pretty darn good theif. Let me tell ya. That guy would slide on lasers like they were solid lakes of ice. And he did it with some style too. Now, if that Sly Cooper slides on lasers and steals a big haul gold from some other big name theif, like that Muggshot or even that new guy, The Black Baron, and gives some to the common people like us, then I'll respect him."

Hmm...

 _Clank! Clink! Clunk!_

I smiled as the gold fell down the stairs as I started climbing up the ladder to the roof.

"Cooper! ... ... Thank you! Wherever you are!"

That felt... huh... Like Robin Hood. Hmm I wonder if I could ever get a time machine and go to the days of Sir Galleth and do that again.

 _A few years later..._

"Bentley? This looks like Robin Hood's outfit!"

"I must dare ask to knowth, who is this Robin Hood?" I had no idea I would get to meed Sir Galeth, but wow is he REALLY overdramatic!

"Guy who would steal from the rich and give to the poor in the fairy tail." Bentley quickly explained as he typed away on his computer. How he was getting Internet on that thing in the thirteen hundreds is still a mystery to me and Murray.

"Wait, guys! I have a theory! What if Sly is Robin Hood!?"

"Don't be rediculous, Murray! There's no way Sly could be-"

"Actually, Murray could be right, Bentley." I grinned as I looked at myself in the mirror with the new archer outfit on me. Feathered hat and a bow, now if only those fairy tails could have been history articles instead of works of ficti- wait...

"Murray is right. I could actually be Robin Hood."

"Sly. Are you even hearing what you're saying?"

"No, seriously! What if Robin Hood was an actuall person, but the stories shined him as a different person? Us messing with the past may have actually created the Robin Hood fairy tale. Think about it. A skilled theif who stole from evil people and gave it to the people?


End file.
